


Legacy

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Drinking & Talking, Family Secrets, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Memories, Old Friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 04:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12950973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: Loki learns from someone who knows just what his mother bequeathed to him.





	Legacy

**Author's Note:**

> Something short and bittersweet while I'm working on the next chapter of [The Convalescent Way](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12735828/chapters/29042601). (Should be up this evening EST, for those keeping up. ♥)
> 
> If you’re on Tumblr, please consider following me at [gaslightgallows.tumblr.com](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com) for more fic, reblogs about writing, and lots of randomness. Thank you for reading and especially for commenting. Comments are love. ♥

“How did Frigga die?”

The question came out of the blue, arresting Loki’s drink halfway to his lips and shattering the wary yet companionable late-night quiet they’d started to build. 

He set his drink down, carefully. “Does it matter?” he asked, his voice neutral, his long fingers nudging his shot glass into precise alignment with the geometric designs on the glass bar top. 

“She was a friend,” said Brun simply. 

Loki’s eyes darted at her for a moment, keen and searching, and then slid guiltily back to his drink. He hadn’t forgotten Brun’s age, of course. It might not be apparent to someone like Doctor Banner, but to an Asgardian, or at least to someone raised among Asgardians, it was obvious enough. She was two thousand years older than either himself or Thor, and she had served as one of the throne’s elite warriors. 

Of course she had known Frigga. 

“The Dark Elves invaded Asgard. Four years ago. She took up her sword in the palace’s defense. Malekith...” He gritted his teeth against the tears that were still locked away in his chest. “Thor and I went after him. We took our vengeance for our mother.”

He said nothing of the Aether, or Jane Foster. There was little point, now that the mortal had thrown Thor over, not really. He couldn't even blame her for Frigga’s death, as badly as he wanted to. Nor did he mention how Thor had needed to break his brother out of prison in order to access the unseen paths between Asgard and Svartalfheim. If Thor hadn’t needed Loki’s very particular skill set, he might have still been in that cell when Hela arrived. _What would she have done,_ he wondered, _if she had found me there? Odin's shameful secret..._

Probably run him through with one of her hideous black blades and then forgotten about him. Thor had been her primary focus from the start. Loki, she had knocked aside like a bug.

Brun let out a huff and closed her eyes briefly against the fresh cut. “At least she went out fighting,” she murmured. “Like she always wanted to.”

Loki frowned. “What do you mean? My mother could fight, certainly, but she was never a warrior.”

“‘Never a warrior.’ Oh prince, you really don't know anything about your family, do you?” Brun tossed back her shot and reached for the bottle (the one with the red liquor; they had all learned to steer clear of the blue stuff). “She was one of the best of us.”

“...My mother was a _Valkyrie_?”

Brun smiled wistfully, her eyes very far away. “The Lady of the Slain, we called her. She was justice and mercy descending from the skies, and she fought like hell. She taught all of us. And weren’t we all pissed when she went off to marry Odin... Damn,” she chuckled, “that was a riot to remember.”

Of all the terrible family secrets he’d learned over the past few years, as secrets went, this one was... not so bad. An image flashed through Loki’s mind, conjuring a picture of his mother, thousands of years younger than he had known her, teaching eager young women the ways of sword and dagger. He couldn’t help smiling. “She taught me, too.”

“I know. I realized that the moment you took that first swing at me. If I hadn’t already known you were Thor’s brother, that fight would’ve told me everything.” Brun leaned over to top off his glass, which it hardly needed, but he appreciated the gesture. “We all eventually developed our own styles, but you? You fight just like her.”

His head jerked up, badly startled by the comparison. “I... no one’s... it’s obvious, really, but no one’s ever...”

“She taught you all her magic, too, I bet. And how to use it in battle.”

“Oh yes... ‘Never forget, Loki: cheaters live.’” He bit his lip, refusing to cry, and let out a shaky, bittersweet laugh instead. “Her bequest to me.”

Brun set the bottle down and, clearly more drunk than he’d thought, slung a companionable arm around his lean shoulders. “It’s not a bad legacy, all things considered. How to come out of a fight alive. For a Valkyrie, it’s the only thing we think is worth passing on. And we only share it with the people we think are worthy of receiving it.”

“And she passed it on to me.” Loki stared down at his overflowing glass, with the sticky red liquor dripping onto his fingers. He picked up the shot glass and knocked the stuff back, and then hurled the glass against the opposite wall, and buried his face in his arms and sobbed, letting out four years of guilt and grief and loneliness in a single humiliating flood. 

The Valkyrie held him the whole time.


End file.
